Senate Democrats get tough on Iraq

Two articles in today's Washington Post show the difference the elections made when it comes to Iraq. Democrats on the Armed Services Committee, which will include Jim Webb (D-VA) after he's sworn in, already intend to be very aggressive -- starting today:

Senate Democrats impatient to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq will inject a new political dynamic into the debate over the war beginning today as they question the military's top Middle East commander for the first time since their party swept into control of Congress this month.

Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, will face questions on the violence in Iraq and what it means for the roughly 145,000 U.S. troops there during scheduled testimony today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, senators from both parties said.

Meanwhile, the new Senate Majority Leader made it clear in an interview with the Post that Iraq is THE priority:

But it was on the issue of Iraq that he was most passionate. Voter anger over the war swept his party to power with the unlikely defeat of six Republican senators, he said. Democrats must respond to that anger, he added, with hearings to keep the heat on the Bush administration, and with calls for a regional Middle Eastern conference and a revitalized Iraqi reconstruction effort.

This quote from Reid summed up his perspective:

"Three Americans killed yesterday, four British; 150 Iraqis taken out of that building and kidnapped; 1,800-plus went through that one Baghdad morgue but that doesn't count all the dead," Reid recounted. "My displeasure with the president, he doesn't understand the urgency of this. It's all victory for him, but I don't know what that means anymore in Iraq. I do know what we are doing now doesn't work."

Bush hasn't understood the urgency. Congressional Republicans didn't hold Bush accountable. They enabled him.

This is why elections matter. Even today, two separate articles in the Washington Post outline the Democrat's aggressiveness on Iraq. It just shows the change. And, it shows that these are Democrats with power now.